McGuires Hotel enters ‘new era’ with $1 million sale

A colourful 142-year-old Queensland pub which once boasted the “finest private zoo in the Commonwealth” has sold as the hotel’s “wonderfully weird” history is revealed in this special feature. VIDEO.

A “new era” beckons for a 142-year-old Queensland pub that once boasted the “finest private zoo in the Commonwealth”.

After almost four decades in the same hands, McGuires Hotel in Mackay will pass to Maureen and Francis Clancy in a $1m sale.

The Clancys already own a pub in outback Queensland, the Oasis Hotel Motel in Cloncurry east of Mount Isa, which they listed for sale earlier this year.

Their new pub, the McGuires Hotel at 15 Wood St in the Mackay CBD, is a Spanish Mission style heritage-listed building completed in 1938.

Known as the “Ritz of the North”, it replaced the Belmore Arms Hotel which Barney McGuire Senior opened in November of 1882, two years after his wife gave birth to their son, Bernard ‘Barney’ James McGuire.

It was Barney Senior’s entry ticket into life as a hotelier after running a cobbler shop on the property “where the soles of the community were kept in good repair”.

Fined for serving liquor on a Sunday

But in those early days, alcohol was a tough sell with prohibition discussed in parliament and many encouraged to take a pledge of abstinence.

In fact, the Belmore’s licensee in 1886 copped a £5 for serving liquor on a Sunday, equivalent to about $530 today.

But that cost paled in comparison to the destruction from Cyclone Eline in 1898 which was estimated to have caused £1,000,000 in damage across Mackay, or about $107m today.

The Belmore Arms Motel at 15 Wood St in Mackay, which later became McGuires Hotel. Picture: Mackay Regional Council

Some hotels were completely obliterated but the Belmore, which was by then managed by Winifred after her husband’s death, managed to survive with only its roof torn off.

Two decades on, Mrs McGuire, who had remarried and become Mrs EM Keneally, passed the running of the pub onto Barney Junior.

But whereas Barney Senior was into shoes and brews, Barney Junior was into brews and zoos – a passion which grew from breeding hundreds of canaries, finches and pigeons in his childhood.

A ‘wonderfully weird’ zoo with a three-legged ‘freak’ cow

He went on to open a zoo at the rear of the Belmore Arms and filled it with an assortment of exotic specimens as well as Australian creatures in what papers described as a “wonderfully weird” collection.

He had Japanese squirrels, kangaroos and wallaroos, myriad types of snakes, a blue tongue lizard, a “kingly” eagle, possums, rock and coast wallabies, sugar squirrels, and koalas.

Barney McGuire junior opened a zoo at the back of the Belmore Arms Hotel on Wood St in Mackay which was later renamed to McGuires Hotel. Picture: Pix Magazine, September 1941

There was also a “freak” cow called Strawberry that was born with three legs in Rockhampton, as well as ponies, monkeys, and a dog called Chip – each of which Barney taught to do tricks to the delight of tourists and locals.

In the Belmore Gardens were hundreds of birds including Chinese golden pheasants, cockatoos, corellas, scrub turkeys, curlews, crows, hawks, magpies, kookaburras, sea gulls, sea eagles, ducks, parrots of almost every colour, and finches that “flash about like pieces of animated jewellery”.

Barney McGuire’s trick ponies won more than 150 awards at various shows. Picture: Contributed

‘Extraordinary’ bone uncovers humpbacks in Mackay for first time

There was a bone “of extraordinary dimensions” from a humpback whale – found on a beach in Seaforth – which at the time stunned scientists as the gentle giants were not known to enter tropical or semitropical waters.

And there were multiple Aboriginal stone axes on display that were discovered at Cameron’s Pocket and on a farm at Pleystowe.

Barney also had crocodiles – including the head of an almost 6m beast caught by Charlie Pagel at McEwens Beach – plus at least three lives ones, one of which was reportedly caught in Mackay.

Visitors in the 20s were lucky enough to watch crocodile eggs hatch but it was said Barney grew so tired of telling guests they were not actually alligators that when he heard Sydney Museum was obtaining specimens, he ordered one of his own.

Queensland’s first ever alligator arrived at the pub not long after the 1918 cyclone which devastated Mackay.

Barney McGuire junior opened a zoo at the back of the Belmore Arms Hotel on Wood St in Mackay which was later renamed to McGuires Hotel. Picture: Pix Magazine, September 1941

Then only 40cm long, it grew to 4.1m before its death in 1938.

“In contrast to the Queensland crocodile, it was not ferocious, and no difficulty was experienced in cleaning its cage,” the Morning Bulletin reported.

McGuire the ‘ideal showman’

Barney’s pub also showcased an aquarium featuring turtles, corals and shells from the Great Barrier Reef as well as goldfish, sunfish and newts, which Sydneysiders in the 1930s no doubt came to see after Barney – as the “ideal showman” – travelled to the big city with his “attractive” Brampton Island exhibit.

In the 1930s, the McGuires Hotel boasted it had running water in every bedroom. Picture: Trove

One has to wonder whether the publican delighted in seeing their faces when they came for the turtles to then also see a “case of stuffed frogs” carefully arranged to resemble a theatre scene.

“On the stage is a frog orchestra, posed with violins, harps and so forth,” the Sydney-based Smith’s Weekly reported in 1927.

“The stalls are filled by a frog audience, and under the stage are frog scene-shifters playing cards.”

Come the 1930s, Barney decided it was time for a change and commissioned renowned architect Harold Brown to design a replacement for Belmore.

The Belmore Arms Motel at 15 Wood St in Mackay, which later became McGuires Hotel. Picture: Contributed

‘Build it Spanish style like the celebs do in Hollywood’

Mr Brown settled on a Spanish Mission aesthetic which had enamoured Australians in the 1920s and 1930s because of its popularity with Hollywood movie stars.

Tasked with bringing Mr Brown’s vision to life was McDonalds Pty Ltd, founded by Donald McDonald who was the son of a Scottish-born migrant also named Donald McDonald who moved to Mackay in the 1970s with his Caribbean wife.

Donald Junior’s son, Archie, bought out his dad in 1929, and in the 1930s led the construction of many Mackay buildings which are now heritage listed including Chasely House, the Palace Hotel, and Barney’s McGuire Hotel which was completed in 1938 and became a popular spot for American troops on rest during World War II.

Historic: Worl War II American servicemen snap pictures of the wildlife at McGuires Hotel Zoo during World War II. Photo Daily Mercury Archives

The Daily Mercury at the time reported the build had cost about £9000, equivalent to about $961,000 today.

But just 15 years after Belmore 2.0 was finished, Barney Junior died at age 73, and the following year the zoo shut with much of his collection going to Townsville’s James Cook University.

An 83-year reign draws to a close

His widowed wife, Winfred, would take over running the pub with the help of her nephew Peter Dempsey up until 1965 when the family sold the pub to Anne Reilly and Fred Storey, marking the end of the McGuires’ 83-year reign.

Ray White Commercial Gold Coast brokered the sale of McGuires Hotel at 15 Wood St, Mackay. Picture: RWC

The pub’s current manager, Paul Robert Baxter, entered the scene five decades later in 2013, just prior to Mackay Regional Council’s multimillion CBD makeover which introduced alfresco dining to other city venues.

Mr Baxter said for a time night-life in the city was “booming” as McGuires welcomed 1300 patrons each weekend.

That was until Covid-19 “killed us”, he said.

The historic McGuires Hotel pub at 15 Wood St in Mackay has been sold. Manager Paul Robert Baxter says he will stay on at the pub as the new owners come into the fold. Picture: Fergus Gregg

“If you weren’t vaccinated, you couldn’t enter into a licenced premises and that really just shut us down overnight … what we have in the entire city centre now on Friday and Saturday nights is what we used to have in (McGuires).

“We used to have them queued up out the front right back to the Commonwealth Bank.”

Mr Baxter will on Saturday night host celebrations to farewell “the end of an era” at McGuires with popular band RAZOR as entertainment, but he will stay on as the Clancys come into the fold.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen at a pub? Let us know in the comments below or email us at [e-mail]

Originally published as McGuires Hotel enters ‘new era’ with $1 million sale